7 common misconceptions about anxiety
Anxiety is the most common problem in psychotherapy. Anxiety problems are related to genetic and environmental factors and are manifested in a variety of forms. Some people suffer from chronic anxiety, others are afraid of certain things or situations, or are afraid of being negatively evaluated in social situations. For some people, anxiety is primarily related to memories of past trauma, while others may experience panic attacks with symptoms of rapid heartbeat, difficulty breathing, sweating, tremors, and dizziness. Untreated or poorly managed, excessive anxiety can seriously affect a person's quality of life. Fortunately, anxiety disorders are usually well treated with medications and psychotherapy.
However, some false assumptions, attitudes, and habits related to anxiety hinder the treatment and improvement of anxiety. Here are some of the most common misconceptions about anxiety.
Misunderstanding 1: "If I don't do anything, my anxiety will continue to increase indefinitely."
Many people who deal with anxiety and panic will be aware of this: you are doing something somewhere; suddenly, your body has crazy symptoms. You have difficulty breathing and dizziness; your heart beats a mile every minute; you feel like you are going crazy. When you feel anxious, you tell yourself that if you don't do anything, the symptoms will continue to rise in the form of a linear function, every minute is rising rapidly and getting worse. This prediction is intuitive, but it is wrong.
In fact, the relationship between panic symptoms and time is not linear, but curved, shaped like inverted u. If your symptoms have significant discomfort, they will continue to escalate for a while, but will not rise forever. After a while, they tend to settle and then fall. This is largely due to the habituation of physiological processes, and prolonged exposure to the same stimuli leads to a decrease in nervous system excitability, which reduces anxiety.
People who deal with anxiety and panic are often unaware of this. One of the reasons is that they have never really experienced it, because they often evade this situation before entering the habit. Therefore, an important part of anxiety treatment involves exposure exercises, through exposure exercises, to guide people to continue to maintain their symptoms when symptoms exceed discomfort, to allow their nervous system time to adapt, and to experience a natural reduction in anxiety.
Misunderstanding 2: Delay avoidance, not avoiding delays.
If you are scared when you jump in the queue from the high diving board, your anxiety may force you to retreat to the back, thus delaying the terrible diving. Hey, you are still extending your waiting time to extend your expected anxiety period.
Expected anxiety is usually worse than the actual expected event because it is not limited by specific behavior. Nothing actually happens, but your anxious brain is free to roam to wherever it wants to go - this usually means a catastrophic scene. Now in life, real disasters are rare and unlikely to happen. But in anxious minds, they are frequent and imminent. Therefore, going to the back of the team will make you more anxious and more likely to fail to achieve your goals. If you are anxious about something (assuming it is not actually dangerous), your best bet is to face it, not to stay away from it.
Misunderstanding 3: Turn attention away from the task of causing anxiety to the symptom of anxiety.
When we feel anxious, our “battle or escape” system is activated, which involves some annoying, distracting, worrying (but not dangerous) physical symptoms. The discomfort of these symptoms may prompt us to concentrate on trying to eliminate them, which usually means avoiding or escaping in the short term. However, skilled anxiety management requires awakening anxiety as an alert, allowing you to focus more on the task at hand than on focusing on symptoms. The correct response to a fire alarm is not to turn off the fire or cover your ears, but to extinguish the fire.
Misunderstanding 4: Mix fear and danger: "I am afraid, so I must be in danger."
Our system of anxiety develops in an era of danger and fear. But today, we live in a very different environment, and it is important not to confuse the two. When you feel anxious, ask yourself: “Is it dangerous?” If the answer is no, then the anxiety symptom is noise, not signal.
Related to this is the difference between your feelings and your state. They are not necessarily the same. For example, people who are drunk often feel that they can drive the car well; people who are in a mad state feel that they can do anything, and so on. Similarly, during an anxiety period, people in a panic attack may feel out of control, but in reality they are not out of control. For example, those who have experienced a panic attack while driving can always find a way to stop their car safely and seek help – all of which are signs of full control.
Myth 5: I hate myself because of anxiety: "I am anxious about this, I am really weak and stupid."
Many people blame themselves for being too anxious in certain situations. They may blame themselves and think that they are weak, stupid, and so on. This is a mistake, self-rejection is not the way to self-improvement. The correct way is to use self-compassion and curiosity while learning to deal with anxiety. Tell yourself: “I feel anxious as part of human beings. Let me accept this feeling, ask about it, understand it, and learn to manage it and be kind to yourself when accepting challenges.”
Misunderstanding 6: hate anxiety because it afflicts you
The symptoms of anxiety are annoying and horrible. Once we have experienced severe anxiety, we are reluctant to repeat this experience. Therefore, avoidance often occurs. Although escaping is effective in the short term, it is counterproductive in the long run. For example, suppose you hate mold. Now let us assume that you have found a mold in the basement. Your instincts, the initial impulse may be to avoid going to the basement because of fear of encountering toxic mold. This is effective in the short term, but it is problematic in the long run, because in this case the mold will spread and will soon invade other rooms in the house. If you want to get rid of mold problems, you must face it positively and you must be in contact with mold. This is unpleasant in the short term, but it is beneficial in the long run.
In this case, it is important to remember that the anxiety system is used to protect us. Just hate it because of anxiety, just like hating a baby who often cries. For babies, crying is an act of seeking closeness and is necessary to establish a close attachment relationship with the caregiver. By crying, the child will remind you of some unmet needs. A child who does not cry when hungry, fearful or painful is unlikely to survive. Just like crying, our anxiety response system is designed to protect rather than hurt. You have to learn how to properly understand, manage and handle it.
Myth 7: The expectation of “getting it for nothing” is: “There is no discomfort in a good life.”
Humans like comfort. Most of us are working hard to avoid discomfort. In fact, achieving any meaningful goal requires enduring discomfort (marriage, raising children, running a business, completing a university, getting older). Therefore, when we spend a lot of time and effort looking for ways to reduce or avoid discomfort, it is also useful to spend some time learning how to endure discomfort so that we can handle it when needed. For those who can't swim, the pool is terrible. However, the best solution is not to avoid the swimming pool but to learn to swim.
references
Noam ShpancerPh.D. 7 Common Misconceptions About Anxiety. Posted Jul 23, 2018
